Category: Machine Intelligence

from the computational-neuroscience dept.
According to a press release (17 December 2001) researchers funded by the Cognitive and Neural Sciences Division at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) are working to reverse engineer certain brain functions in order to produce a machine or system that might mimic some of the brainís capabilities. They announce they have been able to simulate mammalian brain function using biologically realistic, highly detailed computer models of individual brain neurons and their assemblies. From this research they are learning how the architecture and physiological properties of cells in the brain (the primary visual cortex) integrate visual cues for target recognition.
ìRight now weíre building a cellular-level model of a small piece of visual cortex,î says Dr. Leif Finkel, head of the University of Pennsylvaniaís Neuroengineering Research Lab. ìItís a very detailed computer simulation which reflects with some accuracy at least the basic operations of real neurons.î His colleague, Kwabena Boahen, is building VLSI computer chips that reproduce cortical wiring and many of the properties of the cells. ìHe has a chip that accurately models the retina and produces output spikes that closely match real retinae. We hope someday that these can be used as retinal implants.î

Nick Bostrom writes "I have a new paper, setting forth what I call the 'Simulation Argument'. It's located at http://www.simulation-argument.com

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the transhumanist dogma that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed."

from the Light-switch dept.
In a press release (19 November 2001), researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada report they have developed an optical switch that behaves like a transistor. The researchers speculate that such a switch may provide the means to create quantum computers based on optical information processing techniques.

According to a press release on 10 September 2001, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense, is funding a five-year project that will establish a Quantum Architecture Research Center between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of California campuses at UC Davis and UC Berkeley. The project will examine possible methods to build a super fast computer that uses the properties of quantum physics. Primary researchers include computer scientists Fred Chong of the University of California, Davis, Isaac Chuang at MIT and John Kubiatowicz at UC Berkeley. Additonal details can be found on the project website, hosted at MIT.

According to a press release from 10 September 2001, computer security researchers at the University of California at Davis are studying a system that lets exposed, "untrusted" machines go on providing useful, accurate information, even though they might have been infiltrated and compromised. Their method invokes a digital signature from a "trusted" computer that can help verify the integrity of data received from an "untrusted" computer.

from the blue-sky-research dept.
The Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) division of the European Union's Information Society Technologies (IST) Program has launched a new research initiative to develop "life-like perception systems". The objective of the initiative is "to create integrated perception-response systems that are inspired by the sophistication of solutions adopted by living systems. 'Perception' is meant to include sensorial, cognitive, control and response aspects, whether it refers to vision or hearing, or to any other type of interaction with the environment by a biological organism. Such systems would extend the capabilities of machines or be used to augment the human senses."
More information about the program can be found on the CORDIS website at http://www.cordis.lu/ist/fetbi.htm .